ARCHBISHOP TUTU: I've
often been a little concerned by people who say they are color-blind, people
who claim, in some ways, not to be aware of race, and I hope that those who
will be looking for a vision of the future will be a little more honest, and
say race actually does matter.

DR. FRANKLIN: You know,
there are two types of people, I think, who, who claim that a color-blind
society is the ideal society. One is like the Justice of the United States
Supreme Court, who, in 1896, said we are a color-blind society. What he was
speaking of was an aspiration.

ARCHBISHOP TUTU: Yes.

DR. FRANKLIN: But he was
arguing that if we think about ourselves as belonging to a color-blind society,
that itself is a constructive approach. The other kind of person is one who
wants to insist that we are already in a color-blind society, and therefore,
we don't need to do anything about the problems that we have, just, just think
color-blind and the problems will themselves disappear. Now, obviously, in
neither case is this a valid position to take, and I would say, with you,
that what we need to do is not to claim that we're in a color-blind society,
perhaps not even to aspire to a color-blind society, but to recognize--

ARCHBISHOP TUTU: Yes;
yes.

DR. FRANKLIN: --the exis--the
differences that do exist and that cannot go away, will not go away.

ARCHBISHOP TUTU: Yes.

DR. FRANKLIN: And do the
best we can with these differences, even to the point, as our President said,
last year, of celebrating--

ARCHBISHOP TUTU: Yes.

DR. FRANKLIN: --the differences.

ARCHBISHOP TUTU: Well,
I, I would want to have to say it is a glorious thing. I mean, the acknowledgement
that this person is English, white, or French, or German, this is Portuguese,
this is Rwandan, this is Senegalese, this is a black South Africans. To, to
speak of those positively, to say that they have characteristics, each one
of them, that the others almost always do not have, and, and that there is
a, there is a, a complementarily about it.

What I think most of us
would want to assert very firmly is that race should not be used to claim
privileges and rights for one group, exclusively, which are denied other different
groups. Then that is an illegitimate use of race, and, and I would say our
struggle against apartheid was precisely because people were seeking to say
a value attaches to people because of this biological and, at this point,
one would say a biological irrelevance.

DR. FRANKLIN: Yes. We've
had a lot of that in our country, the United States, of course. We've had
people who have used biological differences, who have used ethnic differences,
to, to make a distinction, and to give one group an advantage--

ARCHBISHOP TUTU: Absolutely.
Yes.

DR. FRANKLIN: --over another
group.

ARCHBISHOP TUTU: Uh-huh.

DR. FRANKLIN: And that
is a perversion--

ARCHBISHOP TUTU: Yes.

DR. FRANKLIN: --of what
ought to be an asset. Or at least a, a, a favorable position, or condition.
There's no reason in the world why black should not be regarded as a, as an
attribute that is not degrading but is, is positive. There's no reason in
the world why any person should think that white is degrading.

ARCHBISHOP TUTU: Yes;
yes.

DR. FRANKLIN: But positive.
And I suspect that the--so many of us, of different colors, have looked at
our color in a way that we seek to find in it particular advantages,--

ARCHBISHOP TUTU: Yes.

DR. FRANKLIN: --particular
privileges, particular opportunities that we want to claim only for ourselves--

ARCHBISHOP TUTU: Absolutely;
absolutely.

DR. FRANKLIN: --and not
for others, and that, it seems to me, is a perversion, whether it's used by
blacks or whites or greens or yellows, or whatever.

ARCHBISHOP TUTU: Yes.
I, I, I would hope, too, that those who may be watching this documentary would
get to have a sense of the wonder of belonging in the family of God. That
even one family is made up of individuals who are different. You know, I mean,
you have tall people sometimes, you've got some who are not bright, too bright.
Others are bright and some are beautiful; others are not so beautiful. But
they, they belong in this family and, and the family affirms them, and I would,
I would really, myself, hope that we could, we could have a vision of the
world community, beginning to understand, more and more, that we were put
on this planet to realize that we were family.

And, and, you see, sometimes--you
see, sometimes, when there is a great disaster, how compassion and caringness
come from so many different quarters, and people show a generosity for people
who are in trouble. Now I, I think it's a bit too costly, if we're going to
wait for disasters,--

DR. FRANKLIN: Disasters.

ARCHBISHOP TUTU: --for
these particular attributes to come out. But the scientific, technological
discoveries and adva--advances that are being made, are, are bearing on us,
and, and making us realize that we actually are occupying this as our island
home. All of us together.